The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department has hidden 12 ammo boxes across the state in its first geocaching event, and the first wave of participants stress speed, not leisure.

By Colin McDonald :
November 27, 2009

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You can also stop by the Government Canyon State Natural area between Friday and Monday 7 a.m. - 10 p.m.

It was midnight on a recent Saturday, a waxing moon was on the rise and Barry Watson, aka DocGeo, still had 600 miles to cover and 11 state parks to visit before work Monday.

Somewhere on dark Texas highways, other fanatics were hitting the road with the same mission. The Texas Geocache Challenge was on.

In a bid to use technology to get people outside more often, the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department has hidden 12 ammo boxes across South and Central Texas and posted their coordinates online. The first 100 people to find them all and fill out an official passport will receive a commemorative coin.

One of the caches - and one of the easiest to find - is on the northwestern edge of San Antonio at Government Canyon State Natural Area.

The challenge is a pilot program that organizers hope will expand to parks across the state - the Houston and Dallas-Fort Worth areas are expected to have ones in the spring.

Geocaching is a type of treasure hunt using handheld GPS units to find hidden "caches," which can be anything from a place with a view to the start of an elaborate trail of clues ending in a box filled with trinkets that are then traded among those who find it.

The activity has been around for more than a decade but has grown in popularity as GPS units have become smaller, cheaper and more accurate.

The Texas challenge uses ammo boxes as the caches. Each contains a log book, a short pamphlet telling the visitor about the park they are visiting and a specialized hole punch. For those without a GPS, the TPWD has published a list of clues to find each cache.

Those undertaking the challenge must use the information in the boxes to answer two questions about the park they are visiting. The questions are in the free passport that is provided at the parks' visitor centers. Participants mark each page with the specialized punch. Those wanting the coin must mail the passports to the TPWD office in Bastrop.

Watson was the first to find five of the caches and proudly wrote his name at the top of their logs. After 34 hours - sleeping for only four - he had found all of them, and his passport was in the mail.

"I know how rabid some geocachers can get to be the first," he said. "I wanted to be sure to get a coin."

The challenge started Nov. 1. At last count, TPWD outdoor education coordinator Chris Holmes, who organized the challenge, said 38 participants had mailed in their passports.

While the point is to get visitors to spend time at the parks, Holmes knows the first wave is too determined to linger.

Carl Green, an office manager at Government Canyon, said of the searchers, "They come in with pretty good stories. They do several parks in a day."

For Watson, who volunteers to teach about geocaching at a TPWD outdoor expo each year, the search was all about speed as he and his wife forded streams, ran trails and searched by moonlight.

He spent as little time as possible in each of the parks, but said he would like to return to several. He wants to bring his family for barbeque and camping at Guadalupe River State Park.

Government Canyon is another. "It is very rugged," he said. Watson got that impression by walking just a few yards from the visitors center. More than 20 miles of trails are waiting for him when he returns.